Author
Topic: Primitive camping and then 9/11/01 (Read 8475 times)

In the late '90s, my hometown buddies and I began a tradition that we maintain to date: returning to our small, central Illinois hometown twice a year (once in the spring and once in the fall) to camp for a weekend in the middle of a timber owned by a fellow camper's father. I quickly deduced that I needed to develop a lift-able, water-proof container to store all my camping essentials. That way, come Friday morning of campout day, I could just throw the box in the back of my truck and take off. No scuttling about to corral dinner wear, toilet paper, matches, hatchet, toothbrush, coffee pot, fishing gear, tarp, etc. I christened this container my Rapid Response Campout Kit - essentially, a bug-out box. It's got everything in it to allow me a fast escape and a few days primitive survival. I tinker with it all the time - adding stuff, deleting other stuff, all with the goal of arriving at the perfect mix of weight minimalization and durability/functionality.

After 9/11, I turned a room in my house (now my ex-house) into a calmity room, and gradually filled it up with water, food, toilet paper, candles, hygiene goods, powdered sports drinks, Vitamin C tablets and such like. Since leaving the house, I duplicated this stockpile in my apartment.

"There is no doubt whatsoever that all orthodox communist parties in all countries, including the United States, believe in mass murder." Wm. Bullitt, the United States' first ambassador to the Soviet Union.

I quickly deduced that I needed to develop a lift-able, water-proof container to store all my camping essentials. That way, come Friday morning of campout day, I could just throw the box in the back of my truck and take off. No scuttling about to corral dinner wear, toilet paper, matches, hatchet, toothbrush, coffee pot, fishing gear, tarp, etc. I christened this container my Rapid Response Campout Kit - essentially, a bug-out box. It's got everything in it to allow me a fast escape and a few days primitive survival. I tinker with it all the time - adding stuff, deleting other stuff, all with the goal of arriving at the perfect mix of weight minimalization and durability/functionality.

I essentially do the same thing with all my camping gear. I can bug out in under an hour. The thing that takes me the longest is convincing the wife to hoist the generator into the back of the truck while I'm packing up the food.

I essentially do the same thing with all my camping gear. I can bug out in under an hour. The thing that takes me the longest is convincing the wife to hoist the generator into the back of the truck while I'm packing up the food.

Just remind her that without the generator, there won't be any lights for her to make you a sandwich. That's probably persuasive enough.